Vietnamese workers maltreated in Russia

The Department of Overseas Labour (DoLab) under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the Vietnamese General Consulate in Russia are investigating the case that forty Vietnamese labourers working in Russia's Ekaterinburg City were badly treated.

The two departments asked the Vietnamese Embassy to Russia to look into the case and provide support for the workers according to the guidelines and responsibilities for citizen protection, DoLab Director Nguyen Ngoc Quynh said.

The labourers left their homes in the northern provinces of Ha Nam, Hung Yen and Bac Giang, and were taken to Russia in January to work at a leather garments factory in Ekaterinburg.

They complained to their families on the phone that they were being exploited, forced to work up to 13 hours per day in poor conditions without being paid.

Quynh said that the labourers were not taken to Russian through any of the Vietnamese labour export companies.

In a similar case, which involved another 36 Vietnamese labourers who said that they were not paid enough and were working without medical insurance, said Quynh.

Those workers are now waiting for repatriation in Moscow because their labour contracts were cut short by their employers.

They were sent to Russia in December 2008 and January 2009 to work as construction workers under a contract signed by the Vietnam Steel Corporation and APC Liability Limited Company in Russia.